Chandler Ferguson, patient care tech, offered encouragement when Randy Bastian was about to be moved into the intensive care unit.
Randy Bastian says he woke up in the middle of the night on a Friday feeling sick and says immediately “something told me I had it.” He did indeed have COVID-19. What he didn’t know then was that he was beginning a battle that would take weeks and people he had never met before would give him the courage to keep fighting back the deadly disease just when he feared all was lost.
By Sunday, Randy’s wife insisted he go to the InstaCare. Caregivers there sent him to Logan Regional Hospital where he was tested and told he had COVID-19. They sent him home to recover. He seemed to work through the symptoms and a week later he thought he was well on his way to recovering.
“That Sunday, I went to lay down and I just couldn’t catch my breath,” he says. “I was having a hard time breathing.”
His wife took him to the hospital where caregivers found his blood oxygen saturation level was below 80 percent. Things would get worse before they got better for Randy.
Randy Bastian says that Hannah Christiansen, patient care tech, had "radiant glow about her" that made him feel everything would be fine.
“As time went on, my breathing just got worse, they kept turning the oxygen level up, and they finally decided to move me into ICU,” he remembers. “That’s when I thought, ‘Okay, you’re on your way out.”
Enter Chandler Ferguson, CNA, a patient care tech.
“That’s when Chandler, just kind of sat down with me and consoled me,” Randy says. “He was positive and said, ‘Everything’s going to be alright. You’re going to make it through this.’ It just made me feel good and gave me a positive spark.”
Chandler says he can understand why people would be nervous about what’s coming up once they’re in the hospital with COVID-19. Before speaking with Randy, he’d just talked with a respiratory therapist and understood why Randy was being moved to intensive care. He knew there were still more things they could do to help Randy.
“Just think how scary that might be,” he says. “I just wanted to do whatever I could do to help. I think at certain times we can make a positive impact in the life of a patient or we can have a negative impact. I wanted to make a positive one for Randy.”
Randy says it still wasn’t easy and he found himself wondering if he was prepared to die.
“When they moved me to the ICU, I was scared,” he says. “I was just really scared.”
Hannah Cristiansen said she was honored to be able to help Randy Bastian as he was discharged.
He credits the caregivers who helped him with giving him the courage to keep fighting.
“Their attitudes were just A plus,” he says. “If it wasn’t that way, I don’t think I’d have pulled through. They just put out positive vibes and made me feel like I was going to make it through all of it.”
He specifically remembers how much Hannah Christiansen, another CNA patient care tech, helped him but has a hard time describing how she made him feel.
“Her attitude is like … it’s a great day and you’re a part of it,’ Randy says. “She has a positive aura that’s radiant, and you can’t help but feel positive from it. She just had a glow about her that made me feel like everything was going to be just fine. I felt connected with most all of them up there. Hannah was just one of them who took care of me quite a bit and made sure that I had what I needed.”
Hannah says because patient care techs spend more time with their patients as they help them do basic things like get to the bathroom and brush their teeth, they’ve more time to talk with them.
“I just really try to figure out creative ways to help them feel more relaxed and to feel at ease because it is scary,” Hannah says of her patients. “I mean it’s scary for me just knowing them for the brief period of time I do and knowing they could potentially pass away. That’s really hard for me because I love all the people I take care of.”
Randy says the doctors who helped him wanted to see him released before Christmas and they reached that goal. It was a victory that brought people in the hospital together to celebrate.
“They gathered up all the nurses and workers who were available there and they were standing on both sides of the hall and I was getting wheeled out by Hannah,” he says. “They were all clapping. It was just awesome. It made me feel really good. It was so heart-touching that when I think about it now, I start melting. They all just touched my heart on the discharge. It was way awesome. I’ll remember that forever.”